When the plane prepares to leave the arena of the blue sky and approaches the tiny lagoons and atolls of the Maldives emerge from nowhere in the blue waters of the Indian Ocean, the stark vulnerable beauty of the Earth becomes nakedly evident. The island city Male from the height looks quite similar to the barricaded and fortified village of ancient Gaul, made famous in the comic book-series called Asterix. The only difference is that the unnamed village was surrounded by the forest and Male is surrounded by the vastness of ocean. The city is so crowded that only open and green spaces that one can see from the plane are of a football pitch and national stadium. The people of Male zealously guard their land, just like the Gaulois of the first century BC.There,...

"It is a city of blue, red and green. Above you have deep blue sky, around you there are omnipresent red burnt brick houses and at distance on the horizon you see green forest", explained the Minister of Environment of Colombia while describing Bogota. I was there in April 2010 for the regional workshop which was opened by the Minister. Mr Carlos Costa Posada is an unusual Minister of Environment in more than one sense. Firstly, he came 45 minutes before the scheduled time! This is because he was keenly interested in discussing with me on the 'Climate benefit of Ozone Layer protection activities'. Secondly, he gave an extempore address although he had prepared a speech. Thirdly, he was the Minister with engineering background topped by education in UK. He sent a message to me through his office early in the morning at 7 am suggesting a time for a bilateral meeting. That itself was very...

In the evening of 14th April 2010, I felt as if coming out of clouds and finally getting clear vision. The meeting of the Executive Committee of the Multilateral Fund for the protection of the Ozone Layer that I was attending in Montreal, had just approved the guidelines for financing the projects for HCFC phase out in the developing countries. I considered that as major step forward to open the door to pluck low hanging fruits for the climate benefit. Clearly that presented the unparallel possibility of mitigating nearly 40 Giga T of CO2 equivalent globally. Compare that with the mitigation of just 1.5 Giga t of CO2 equivalent due to all the CDM projects approved till now. Great work indeed. Then same evening, a bit later, I read on the internet the word which was spelled as Eyjafjallajokull , and pronounced , later I was told, as "AY-yah-fyah-lah-YOH-kuul." It sounded like a word that...

'Diplomats & Businessmen' that is the signboard at Jeddah Airport in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia directing the arriving Diplomats and Businessmen through a special and privileged lane for passport control and immigration clearance. I had seen such special lanes only for the diplomats in a number of countries. However I had never seen a single special lane for both diplomats and businessmen. Jeddah must be the only airport in the world that equals diplomats with businessmen, when it comes to passport control. After all, why not? Kofi Annan, former Secretary General of United Nations in 1999 at the World Economic Forum said: "..... I told you about hopes for creative partnership between the United Nations and the private sector. …..that the everyday work of the United Nations -- whether in peacekeeping, setting technical standards, protecting intellectual property or providing much-needed...

'Somewhere in the South Pacific Sea'- that's the phrase used when one gets lost. I was recently lost somewhere in South Pacific sea. I was part of the thin line of green land that divides the blue sky above and Pacific sea below. When prayers started at the beginning of the meeting, as per the practices in the region, I was not lost. I was listening carefully to what the priest standing next to me was praying. "We ask the heavenly Father, God, to be with us all in this important meeting. We thank God for bringing the UNEP facilitators to Vanuatu to tell all of us the importance of the Montreal Protocol. We request the help of the spirit from above to guide and provide us better understanding of the Montreal Protocol and to be in its compliance. We ask God to guide us through UNEP resource persons to implement the action plan ahead of us, related to the ODS issues. We thank God for the...

Bella Centre in Copenhagen is a generously large and copiously structured conference complex. My first visit to Denmark, a country with 482 islands, started with a visit to this centre, which is quite large and looked bit disproportionate to the size of the country. I decided to keep all what I read of Denmark including its Viking past, seafare adventures and famous cheeses outside and entered the Bella Centre. That was month of November in 1992! It was evening when I stepped in the Bella Centre to register for the Fourth Meeting of the Parties-MOP- of the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the ozone layer. I was fresh, rather oven-fresh, in United Nations Environment Programme -UNEP. I was attending the 4th MOP as the OzonAction Coordinator of UNEP's then Industry & Environment office. The OzonAction Programme had just begun its work as Implementing Agency under the...

Nothing grows there, on the south-west beach of the Red sea, except fish and colourful corals. The place is designed to be a beach resort in the desert with its clean lonely beaches, white sands, bottle-green seawater, soft refreshing and cold wind sweeping across, riding on the waves of white surf. My two weeks stay at Port Ghalib, Egypt, attending the international meeting to discuss the future of the Montreal Protocol on substances that deplete the Ozone Layer was an experience short of staying in the monastery. The place is remote, distant, arid, barren, parched dry, and does not even resemble an oasis, because it does not have a natural source of freshwater of its own. The fresh water is produced by desalination of sea water, electricity is produced by diesel generator, and partly as sequel of the desalination plant, waste water is treated and recycled to water the small shrubs...

The world is getting addicted to unsustainable life style. In a way it strives to sustain the un-sustainability. I am not talking about the use of fossil fuel only. Take for example CCS- Carbon Capture & Storage. CCS approach is very simple. The electricity generating plants would continue to use fossil fuels without any regrets about climate change. That's because they would reduce or eliminate emissions by capturing carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels and storing it underground in the earth's geological bed rocks. This appears to be a simple way to solve the climate change problem.

CCS is now accepted by all. It is the solution to reduce emissions at least in medium terms. The world has not yet found alternatives to coal-fired power plants. Coal will continue to take major share (40 %) as a fuel for generating electricity. No wonder that there are flurry of the activities in CCS...

There could not have been a more appropriate place than Panama City for the workshop on "illegal trade" in environmentally damaging commodities, i.e. Ozone Depleting Substances-ODS. Panama City is the symbol of a 'historic passage' that allows trade of goods transported by ships and cuts down a long and time consuming journey by about 12,000 kms. Not very far from the banks of the Panama Canal, were representatives of 20 countries discussing the mechanisms to prevent illegal trade as per the control measures of the Montreal Protocol. I was, on behalf of UNEP as organizer, facilitating discussions. Even as we discussed, we saw ships approaching and leaving the Canal. A perfect setting for a workshop of this kind, I thought. The Customs Authorities and the National Ozone Units of 20 countries shaped up, during the meeting, regional cooperation to enhance the sharing of information...

English surrounded by French! That would be the description of Nigeria. Surrounded by five nations that speak French, Nigeria's English not only survived the siege of French but it also survived the host of more than 500 local languages. No doubt, English has become the unifying language of the nation.

When I landed at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport of Abuja, I got a glimpse of linguistic diversity. One of my guests speaking English with Igbo accent was making fun of his colleague speaking English with Hausa accent. I could not get to understand the exact fun part but could guess it very well. In India, the heavy accent of southern English is the subject of much amusement in the rest of India.

While language is fun, religion in Nigeria is a serious matter. Depending on who is responding, and where the respondent ...